USA > Indiana > Indiana, a redemption from slavery > Part 8
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This is set out in a petition of Pierre Gamelin and others, dated November 20, 1793, in these words: "In 1742, some time after the foundation of this post, the natives of this country made the French and their heirs an absolute gift of the lands lying between the point above (pointe coupée en haut) and the river Blanche below the village, with as much land on both sides of the Wabashı as might be comprised within the said limits.1 At first the ignorance of the value of those lands was the reason why there have been no authentic writings con- cerning this donation ; but such as were in existence an unfortunate register 2 carried off, with several conse- quential papers ; afterwards the war of 1759 prevented the obtaining of them. However, the donors ratified the gift in all the councils which have since been held both with the officers of France and with those of His Bri- tannic Majesty; and when the English agents, in 1774, came to purchase lands of the Indians, the donors, at that time, also ratified anew the said donation. We observe that at the time the English, as they wished to deceive the unfortunate Indians, by inserting in the con- tract both sides of the river instead of one, which the latter consented to dispose of, they would not subscribe to it. The last year in councils, the first which have been held between the United States and these Indians, they unanimously spoke of the donation in these terms : ' Americans, this is the first time I have come to see you
1 Pointe Coupée is the abrupt bend of the Wabash five miles below Merom. It was reckoned to be twelve leagues above Viu- cennes, and the mouth of White River was estimated to be an equal distance below. The grant was intended to be twenty- four leagues square.
2 Baumer, a royal notary during St. Ange's rule.
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and to hearken to you. I shall, however, tell you the truth. Our fathers gave to the French and their heirs all the lands between la pointe coupée and the River Blanche, on both sides of the Wabash river, to enable them to live, and for the pasturage of their animals. The French and us are but one people ; our bones are mingled in this earth; we are not now come to take it from them ; on the contrary we say that all those who are here [shall] dwell here ; these lands are theirs. We have never sold lands. I do not think that there is a son capable of selling the grave of his mother. Were we to sell our lands, the Grand Source of Life would be displeased, for we should also sell the bones of our fathers and the roebucks [i. e. deer, game], and we should die with hunger. I do not come to jest with you, or to ridicule our brethren the French. I refer to the writings for what our fathers have given to the French ; writings properly drawn never deceive. Tell the great chief what I have just said ; they are our unanimous sentiments.' " 1
Although this ancient writing was never found, there is little room to doubt that this grant was actually made. Aside from the evidence recited by the petitioners above, and the grant to the Piankeshaws by St. Ange, this tract is expressly reserved to "the inhabitants of Post St. Vin- cent " in a deed made in 1775,2 though in council with Putnam, in 1792, the Indians denied the validity of this deed, except as to the recital of the original grant to the
1 Am. State Papers: Pub. Lands, vol. i. p. 32. That this speech is authentic, see certificate of General Rufus Putnam, ibid., p. 340. The records of the proceedings at this council appear to have been removed from the government archives at an early day.
2 Ibid., vol. i. pp. 338-340; Dillon, cd. of 1859, p. 107.
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people of Vincennes. Furthermore, the various sover- eignties which held the post always treated the Indian title to this tract as being extinguished, and it was never pretended to have been extinguished otherwise than by this grant. The French and British commandants made grants of parts of the tract to individuals, as did also the official representatives of Virginia ; and the United States surveyed and sold what was left of it.1 The oldest of these individual grants, for which the deed is pre- served at Vincennes, dates June 15, 1759, but in 1773 there were ten deeds of earlier date existing. In 1772 the people of Vincennes were required by General Thomas Gage to verify their titles by submitting to him the names of the claimants, the date and quality of the title, the names of the commandant who made the con- cession and the governor-general who confirmed it. In their certificate, a copy of which is before me, there ap- peared eighty-eight claimants, only one of wliom pro- fessed to have acquired title previous to 1742. This was M. Delorier, who claimed to have had a deed from Vin- cennes, which must of course have been made as early as 1736, but which had been lost. Of the remaining claimants, seventy-four claimed grants from St. Ange, and thirty-four of these produced deeds, which ranged in date from 1749 to 1764. Those who could not pro- duce deeds fortified their claims by a certificate from St. Ange that he had made concessions, and one from Etienne Phillibert, the village notary, that numerous deeds had been carried off by Baumer, the former notary, when he left the country. There were thirteen who claimed under the British commandants, all of
1 Am. State Papers: Pub. Lands, vol. i. p. 10; Law's Vin- cennes, pp. 106-121.
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whom produced their deeds. These individual claims were allowed, or other provision made for the claimants, by the United States, but the claim for the twenty-four leagues square was rejected by the commissioners for want of evidence.1 The decision is justifiable only on the ground that the title passed from the Indians to the French throne, and not to the inhabitants of the village.2
Within this little state of twenty-four leagues square our French colonists of Vincennes held their residences, and passed the greater part of their contented, careless lives. Their agriculture was of a very primitive style. Fertilization was never thought of. In winter they or- dinarily carted the accumulations of manure out on the ice of the streams, on which their settlements were in- variably made, to be washed away in the spring; and it was asserted by their early American neighbors that in some cases, barns were removed when the piles of manure had been allowed to accumulate until it had become more difficult to remove them than to move the building. "The plow was of wood, except the share. Its long beam and handles extended ten or twelve feet, and it had a wooden mould-board. In front were two wheels, also of wood, of different sizes ; a small one to run on the unplowed side, and a larger one in the furrow. There were neither chains nor whiffle-tree; oxen were fastened by a pole which had a hinged attachment to the beam, and very good though shallow plowing was per- formed by this rude but ingenious implement. Both oxen and horses were used in the various operations. The harness was very simple, and constructed of withes
1 Am. State Papers : Pub. Lands, vol. i. p. 301.
2 This was the position taken by Governor St. Clair. St. Clair Papers, vol. ii. p. 400.
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or twisted raw-hide. No yoke was used, but a rope of the kind mentioned was passed around the oxen's horns and they pushed with their heads."1 Other descriptions of the plow and the plowing varied slightly from this. Governor Reynolds says: "They had no coulter and liad a large wooden mould-board. The handles were short and almost perpendicular ; the beam was nearly straight, and rested on an axle supported by two small wheels ; the wheels were low, and the beam was so fixed on the axle, with a chain or rope of raw-hide, that the plow could be placed deep or shallow in the ground. The wheels made the plow unsteady. The French settlers seldom plowed with horses, but used oxen. It is the custom of the French everywhere to yoke oxen by the horns, and not by the neck. Oxen can draw as much by the horns as by the neck, but it looks more savage. . . . The ox-yoke was almost a straight stick of wood, cut at the ends to fit the horns of the ox, and was tied to the horns with a strap of raw-hide." 2 When horses were used they were driven tandem. The only agricultural implement besides the plow was a heavy iron hoe with a long shank, such as was in use among the Indians long after the French had adopted lighter tools of American make.
The cultivation was rude, but the rich soil, then in its virgin strength, produced crops that supplied all the needs of the settlers, and left an abundance for export when prices justified exportation. Nearly every year barges loaded with flour, pork, tallow, hides and leather, passed down the Mississippi to New Orleans, from which
1 Mich. Pion. Coll., vol. i. p. 353.
2 Pioneer Hist. of Ill., pp. 49, 50. Breese's account is similar to this. Early Hist. Ill., p. 196.
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point the cargoes were reshipped to France and the West Indies; in return came sugar, metal-goods, and European fabrics.1 ) " About the year 1746 there was a great scarcity of provisions at New Orleans, and the French settlements at the Illinois, small as they then were, sent thither, in one winter, upwards of eight hun- dred thousand weight of Flour." 2 It is recorded that one farmer in the Illinois furnished the king's magazine eighty-six thousand pounds of flour, and this was but part of his crop. Indian corn was not so much culti- vated as wheat, and what was raised was used for feed- ing cattle and hogs. Some was consumed in the shape of hominy, but corn-bread was an unknown article of diet.8 Mills of various kinds were in use among the French settlers from the earliest times, as also among the Indians who adopted agriculture. In 1711, Peni- caut writes of the Kaskaskias: "They have near their village three mills for grinding their grain, to wit: a wind-mill, belonging to the Reverend Jesuit Fathers, which is much used by the settlers, and two others, horse- mills, which belong to the Illinois themselves."4 In 1727 the people of Kaskaskia were objecting to the grant of half a league of land to three habitants who were erecting a water-mill there.5 Flour was transported almost altogether in bags made of tanned elk skins.6 That the French had convenient mills was due to their flocking together in settlements. The scattered Ameri-
1 Davidson & Stuvé's Ill., p. 127.
2 Hutchins's Top. Desc., p. 18, note ; Du Pratz's Hist. of La., Lond. ed. of 1774, p. 182.
3 Breese's Ill., p. 195.
4 Margry, vol. v. p. 490.
5 Breese's Early Ill., p. 289; Reynolds's Ill., p. 92.
6 Breese's Ill., p. 206.
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can farmers, who came later, subsisted largely on corn- meal, and made it in hand-mills, or with rude crushers or scrapers.1
The one vehicle of the French settlements was the calèche, or cart, a light, two-wheeled affair withont tires or iron-work of any kind.2 The same is in use in Nor- mandy and other French provinces now ; and it is still used, in the wilder parts of Canada and the Northwest, by the fur-traders and Indians. In some of them the bed resembled a dry-goods box; in others it was a plat- form surrounded by a low railing; in others the railing was along the sides only. It was used for all kinds of farm-work, hauling, and transportation. It had no seat. When used as a carriage, a buffalo robe spread on the floor served for a cushion, or, if the owner made preten- sions to aristocracy, chairs were placed in it. For trav- eling through the wilderness, it was and is superior to a four-wheeled vehicle, but for farm use it could not com- pete with the wagon ; and so it disappeared, with many others things once common to the Mississippi valley, so long ago that scarcely the memory of it remains where once it creaked and groaned over the rough trails.8
The houses varied in construction with the age of the settlements. In 1727, the missionary Du Poisson wrote : " A man, with his wife, or his associate, clears a small section, builds him a house with four forked sticks, which he covers with bark, plants some corn and rice for his
1 Reynolds's Pion. Hist. Ill., p. 141; Hist. Knox Co., p. 88.
2 These were also known by the more indefinite name of voiture. The Americans sometimes called them "barefooted wagons." One of them, as now used by the traders of the Northwest, is in the National Museum at Washington.
8 Mich. Pion. Coll., vol. i. p. 354; Law's Vincennes, p. 18; Cauthorn's Vincennes, p. 21.
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food ; another year he raises more provisions, and begins a plantation of tobacco ; and if he finally attains to the possession of three or four negroes, behold the extent to which he can reach. This is what they call a plantation and a planter."1 The next advance in architecture, which was as far as the poorer classes ever went, was the construction of log-houses in the mode called poteaux au terre. In some of these the posts which formed the walls were set on end in trenches, close one to another, and the interstices chinked with a mud mortar mixed with sticks, straw, or moss. In others the posts were grooved on the sides and set three or four feet apart, the intervening spaces being filled with puncheons, laid cross-wise, and fitting in the grooves. The mud was then applied and the surface was whitewashed inside and out. The roofs were sometimes thatched, some- times covered with strips of bark, or, at a more recent day, covered with oak clapboards fastened by wooden pegs. The best class of houses, which began to appear in the later days of the French régime, were also built in this manner, or occasionally of stone. These were gen- erally one story in height, with a loft above, lighted by dormer-windows, though occasionally they boasted two full stories. Ladders were always placed on the roofs for use in case of fires. The piazzas extended around the building. In this class of residences the doors were usually in the centres of the sides, opening into a hall which crossed from front to rear. On each side of the hall were two rooms; on one side the grande chambre or parlor, and the salle à manger or dining-room ; on the other the cabinet or bed-room, and the cuisine or kitchen. No fire was used in the sleeping apartment.
1 Kip's Early Jesuit Missions, p. 233.
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The other rooms were usually heated by open fireplaces, though sometimes luxury reached the height of a stove set in the wall between the parlor and dining-room, with the doors opening into the latter.1
Adjoining the kitchen was the boulangerie, or bake- house, furnished with a brick oven and a trough for kneading bread. Butter was very seldom seen in one of the old French houses, probably on account of the difficulty of making it; they had no churns, and the little butter they used was made by shaking the cream in a bottle, or placing it in a bowl and beating it with a spoon. The washing was done at the nearest stream, whither the clothing was conveyed, and there cleansed by beating it with a mallet, as in parts of France at present. The furniture of the houses was ordinarily rude, though in some houses might be seen wardrobes, dressing-tables, and rush-bottomed chairs. Sometimes an odd bit of silverware, an heir-loom in the family, was conspicuously displayed ; and not infrequently a Ma- donna or a print of the Passion appeared on the walls. The bed was the object of more attention than anything else in the line of furniture, for our French settlers loved comfort. Feather pillows were universal, and all who could possibly afford them had great feather beds spread on the rope network of their stilted bedsteads, and covered with quilts of bright patchwork. Carpets were unknown, but parlor floors were often covered with mats of Indian workmanship. About the house was always a garden, in which was to be seen a profusion of both vegetables and flowers. This was enclosed by a
1 Mich. Pion. Col., vol. i. p. 357; Hist. Knox Co., pp. 241, 242; Breese's Early Ill., p. 197; Reynolds's Ill., p. 50; " Vincennes a Century Ago," in Potter's Am. Mo., vol. xii. pp. 165, 166.
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fence of sharpened pickets, set close together in the ground.1
The mechanical industries of the French settlements were in quite a primitive state. Says Governor Reynolds : "Mason-work of that day was good; but of the rest I can say nothing in praise of them. The cooperage of the country amounted to very little more than making well-buckets. The carpenters were unskillful in their profession. They framed houses and covered them with peg shingles ; made batton doors, &c., in a rough fashion. No shoemakers or tanners ; but all dressed deer skins, and made mawkawsins. Almost every inhabitant manu- factured his own cart and plough, and made his harness, traces, and all, out of raw hides. Blacksmith shops were like iron - scarce. . . . In fact, neither male or female worked much; but the females assumed their prerogative, of doing less than the males. There was neither spinning-wheels or looms in the land. It must be awarded to the French, and particularly to the ladies, that they expended much labor, and showed much taste, in making nice gardens." 2 In the way of pure luxuries the settlers had tobacco and various liquors. The men smoked their pipes much of the time, and both men and women used snuff; elderly ladies were very seldom seen without their snuff-boxes. The Jesuits had breweries, in which a medium article of beer was made, from very early times; but the principal beverage of the French period was a native wine. Says Fraser : "They make, however a very bad Wine, from the natural vine of the Country which grows spontanious in every part of that
1 Breese's Ill., pp. 197, 198, 204; Reynolds's Ill., pp. 51, 87, 88; Mich. Pion. Coll., vol. iv. p. 73.
2 Pioneer Hist. Ill., pp. 87, 88.
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Colony, this Wine tho' seemingly very unhealthy is sold at a most exorbitant price, when they have none else to drink." Others give a more favorable opinion of this wine than the disgruntled lieutenant, but it was prob- ably nothing extra. About the beginning of the British period it rapidly gave way to " tafia," a rum made from inolasses and the refuse of sugar-cane, which was im- ported from New Orleans. Clark's men were furnished with rations of this; but after American immigration had become rapid, tafia disappeared and Monongahela whiskey became the popular stimulant. At the same time very good native wines and liquors began to be manufactured by the Swiss colonists on the Ohio. The French had always their public houses, where the vil- lagers could pass their time in conviviality, and where they often became boisterous and disorderly. St. Ange, in 1764, instructed his successors to "do away, as far as possible, with the disorder which arises from drinking." When Hamilton came and took possession of Vincennes, in 1778, he wrote that he had seized all the spirits in the place, and would destroy the billiard tables.1 Think of it! Billiard tables on the Wabash in 1778! What a time they must have had getting them there; and what rare games they must have had on those vast ex- panses of green cloth, with dead cushions, uneven balls, and crooked cues !
The costumes of the people were, of course, of French mode, tinged somewhat with Indian characteristics. In summer the men wore shirts and pantaloons or leggings, the latter supported by a leathern girdle; the feet were
1 Hamilton to Haldimand, December 28, 1778, Can. Archives. For preceding matters see Reynolds's Ill., pp. 87, 229; Breese's Ill., p. 195; Hutchins's Top. Desc., pp. 29, 43.
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bare ; the head was covered with a straw hat of domestic manufacture, or a knotted handkerchief of gaudy color. In winter moccasins or list shoes were worn ; also a long vest and a capote or cloak, with a hood for the head. For dress occasions, a broad sash, tied behind and dang- ling to the knees, replaced the leathern belt. It was usually of Indian make, adorned profusely with beads. The voyageurs affected leathern shirts, worn outside the pantaloons, and covered their heads with gay-colored, tasseled, cloth caps. The exterior garment of the women was the habit, a skirt reaching to the knees, below which the gaudy petticoat continued to the ankles. They wore large straw hats in summer, and fur hats or bonnets in winter.1
The religion of the French settlers was exclusively Roman Catholic, and with it were associated numerous customs which have since fallen out of remembrance in this state. Marriage was the great event of a lifetime. The banns were published on three successive Sundays. The ceremony was preceded by the contract of be- trothal, drawn with the consummation of notarial skill, and witnessed by relatives and friends of the contract- ing parties ; it was followed by feasting, dancing, and pledging the health of the happy pair through the chief part of the succeeding night, and sometimes for several days. When a widow or widower married for the third time, the youth of the neighborhood indulged in a chari- vari, and the recipients of the discordant serenade could obtain peace only by payment to their tormentors of a sum of money, which professedly went to the poor in olden times, but in later years was used in purchasing
1 Mich. Pion. Coll., vol. i. p. 359; vol. iv. p. 74; Law's Vin- cennes, p. 18; Potter's Am. Mo., vol. xii. p. 168.
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refreshments for the serenaders. The American settlers entered into this sport with so great zest that it came to be common at any marriage, and, what was worse, it became a method of insult and the cause of serious affrays.1 One instance, of modern years, in Michigan, resulted in the killing of one of the serenaders by the bridegroom, who was roused to desperation by the fact that his mother was sick in the house at the time, and her illness was dangerously aggravated by the noise. He was convicted for the act in the lower court, but the supreme court of the state reversed the decision because the instructions did not concede to the prisoner the full measure of his right to defend his home and family.2
Mardi Gras was always an occasion of celebration, though, of course, not in the elaborate style that obtained in cities. The evening was passed in entertainment at the house of some one of the wealthier citizens. Cook- ing pancakes, such as we call flap-jacks, was made an amusement in which all the guests took part, the sport consisting in the rivalry of tossing and turning them. The one who tossed them highest and landed thiem safely again in the long-handled skillet received the compliments of all, while laughter and ridicule were the lot of the unskillful. When cooked, the cakes were piled up on plates, with maple-sugar, to form the chief dish of the supper. After the feast came dancing until midnight, when the guests bade farewell to wordly gay- eties till Lent was over. On New Year's Day presents were given, and calls were made by the gentlemen. In- stead of saluting a caller with, " We have had fifty-seven
1 Reynolds's Pion. Hist. Ill., pp. 145, 146; Potter's Am. Mo., vol. xii. p. 167.
2 Patten v. The People, 18 Mich. 313.
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calls. How many have you made?" the hostess pre- sented her cheek for a kiss, which was gallantly given. After the English took possession of the country the officers' wives attempted to break up this custom, but they soon adopted it, substituting, however, the lips for the cheek : the prudery of American settlers was proof against any such familiarity, and so the charming old fashion had to go. With it have also gone the christen- ing of bells, the distribution of blessed bread and small cakes on fête days, the taking of a collection by a lady of the congregation on days of solemn feasts, and many other of the manners of mother France. One that has been revived a few times of recent years, at Detroit and Grosse Pointe, is that of young men masking on New Year's Eve and singing a peculiar carol from house to house. In the olden time they took with them a cart, in which the people placed clothing and provisions that were afterwards distributed among the poor.1
Those who visited the settlements on the Wabash dur- ing the French and British occupations regarded them as prosperous and promising. Captain Thomas Hutchins, of His Majesty's 60th Regiment of Foot, afterwards Geographer to the United States, who saw the country in his occasional service there from 1764 to 1775, de- scribed them as follows: "Two French settlements are established on the Wabash, called Post Vincient and Quiatanon; the first is 150 miles, and the other 262 miles from its mouth.2 The former is on the eastern
1 Potter's Am. Mo., vol. xii. p. 167; Mich. Pion. Coll., vol. iv. pp. 70-78.
2 He means 262 miles above Vincennes, as appears by his state- ments elsewhere. The estimate is too great, - an error that is very common with Hutchins. See Volney's Climate and Soil of U. S., p. 4.
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